The Reason
by AlienZombies
Summary: The last thing anyone expected to find in the heart of the hot, infected Louisiana swampland was a reason. NICKXELLIS


I just don't like this fic. It started out with a good premise and then things got kind of muddy and scrunched and inconsistent, so I'm sorry. Though, as promised, this one is a little less... doom-y than usual.

Please let me know what you think. Really. :D

**The Reason**

"Don't know if I can go on," Ellis whispered. He put his head between his knees and groaned. "God, my whole body hurts."

"We can't quit now," Rochelle said, trying to stem the bleeding of a gash on her head. "We're already in Louisiana. The battle's half-over, boy."

"Tryin'. God, I'm tryin'."

Nick kept watch, his shotgun scanning the trees around them. Ellis huffed and moaned as he cut out the bullet in his arm and patched it over. In the sweltering, pulsating heat, and the dampness of the marsh, the odds that the wound would get infected were incredible – but that didn't stop him.

"Jesus Christ," he kept muttering. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"I didn't mean to shoot you, all right?" Coach snapped. "I'm sorry, son, honest."

"It's all right, Coach," Ellis said, amiably enough, despite the pain laced in his voice. "I guess I'm just startin' to look like a genuine bloodsucker, after all."

Coach laughed, but his eyes were bleak. A lot of his spirit had gone out after Nick blew the pilot's head clean off his shoulders.

"What's the point?" Rochelle muttered. She wiped her hands on her pants and picked up her gun again. "Why are we even running?"

"Ain't no time to worry 'bout that now," Ellis said miserably. He got back on his feet. "Time to move."

They walked into the village, holding their breath in a unit. The sight of towns had once excited them, but now it only filled them with dread.

* * *

The last of the swarming Infected had finally hit the ground for good when the eerie howling started.

It started quietly at first, catching on the wind, and for a moment they weren't sure what it was – but then it was clearer, the defined weeping of the damned, high and pitiful. Instinctively, everyone fell silent and looked around.

"Another fucking Witch," Nick muttered, reloading his shotgun with trembling hands. "God _damn_."

"That ain't no Witch," Ellis whispered, stopping in his tracks. He lowered his rifle and cocked his head like a dog, listening to the sound. Everyone stopped to watch him. "That ain't no Witch. Can't you hear it? Ain't no Witch."

"It ain't," Coach agreed. He looked sick.

"Well, what do you figure?" Rochelle hissed. "It can't be a person, can it?"

They were all quiet, then. Nick's stomach doubled at the sound of that high, undulating cry. It seemed wrong, somehow, quite not like the crying one would expect from an adult, but it didn't sound infected either, it sounded sort of like… Like something he innately recognized, but could not place, had heard before but never for long, sort of…

"It's a kid," Ellis said, his voice a gasp on the muggy wind.

Suddenly, they all knew he was right. Rochelle moaned low in her throat, clutching a hand over her stomach as if she might be ill. All at once, they were hyper-aware of their surroundings, the many empty houses, each probably hiding some nasty secrets, dead families and abandoned meals and lingering zombies. Somewhere, somewhere in there, there was another one of them, another living person. A child who needed help.

"We should keep moving," Nick said quietly. He stared at his feet. He felt coldly ashamed.

"What do you mean?" Ellis asked. His eyes were wide with horrified understanding.

"I mean we need to get a move on before night falls, that's what I mean. What, do you want to miss out on another day? Do you know how much of a chance we have of missing rescue with every second we waste?"

"You shut your mouth, boy," Coach growled. "Can't you hear yourself?"

Nick shut up. He swallowed hard and swiped a grimy hand over his forehead. "What the fuck ever," he muttered.

"We've got to find it," Rochelle said. She sounded so small. "We can't just leave it here…"

Ellis took a few steps forward and stopped again. He tilted his head once more, and then motioned with the barrel of his rifle. "This way."

They followed the sound, squelching through the mud, stopping every ten feet to listen and change direction. Nick watched the rear. The entire settlement was deserted, sinking into the mud, reeking of death.

"This one, I think," Ellis murmured, creeping up the steps to a decrepit cabin and leading them inside.

"Oh, Jesus," Rochelle said the minute the door was open. She retched and covered her nose with her shirt.

The stink of decay was horrendous. It came from upstairs. Dutifully, Ellis led them up – and the crying was nearer and nearer, until it seemed to be right in Nick's ear. He wanted to bolt, gripped his shotgun until it hurt. He didn't want to see what was making that awful, soulful noise.

They turned a corner, and there it was, the pile of bodies. The almost unidentifiable corpse of a woman and the body of a little girl in a deep state of decomposition, swarmed in flies and maggots, oozing black fluids onto the floorboards. Rochelle let out a strangled scream and turned to vomit, staggering into the wall. She wouldn't go back into the room, kept shaking her head and moaning, "_No, no, no_…" Tears left clean tracks down her cheeks, washing away the swamp's slime.

Coach stood back and Nick took his place by Ellis's side. He pointed his gun around, and for a long moment neither of them saw the little boy, because he was so dirty he blended in with the shadows and the dark rot of the bodies. Ellis saw him first and shouted out, and when Nick spotted him, his gut was filled with ice.

The little boy looked up at them and wailed long and loud. He was up to his elbows in the corpse of his mother. Gore was streaked down his face, smeared in his hair. He couldn't have been older than three years old.

"Oh, God!" Ellis cried, and ran to pick him up. He held the child close to his heart, rocking him back and forth, and there was something eerily sweet about it – a mother cradling her fitful baby in a room full of carcasses. "Poor lil' guy, poor lil' thing… Don't cry no more, now, shush now…"

The boy's crying quieted down to that quiet, pathetic sound children make when they have given up on being comforted. He sucked his bloodstained thumb as Ellis brushed insects from his hair.

"Can't believe this," Nick muttered. It was surreal, in a way, to see another living person. He had almost begun to believe that there were none left, and, subconsciously, he had always thought that if they ever found another survivor, they would also be adults. But here was this little boy, immune, surrounded by destruction, miraculously alive and vital.

"Poor thing," Ellis kept whispering. "How could this happen?"

A gunshot thundered through the house. Coach had killed something.

"We can't stay," Nick said quietly, staring into the round, frightened face of that little boy. "Come on, Ellis. We've got to get moving."

"Look at him, Nick," Ellis rasped. His own face was cheesy and paler than Nick had ever seen it. "Look at him."

"I know." Nick's own throat felt raw. He felt certain he might throw up. "I know."

Ellis skirted the bodies and hefted the boy onto his hip in a natural, thoughtless sort of way. The boy clung to his shirt and whimpered.

They were off again. The boy made no more noise. Blood rained down around him.

* * *

They reached the safehouse just after dark. Ellis set the little boy down on a table, and Rochelle set about washing him with a bucket full of murky water and a rolled-up T-shirt. The boy sat quietly through it, as layers of blackened blood and dirt were scrubbed away. A pale, freckled face appeared, a shock of yellow hair, and a pair of brilliant blue eyes. Rochelle tittered and sung and cooed as she worked, but it didn't seem to pacify the boy at all. He looked at her as if she were an alien.

Now clean, he looked younger than ever before. That thought made Nick's blood burn in his veins. He'd never liked children, but the thought of this kid – this toddler, this baby – sitting in the blood of his dead family was the stuff of nightmares.

They all operated under the unspoken agreement that they were to bring the boy with them to the evacuation point. They couldn't very well leave such a tiny, precious life behind. But what the hell were they going to do with a child? They could barely keep themselves alive and out of danger.

They found a gash on the back of his leg, and he was unwilling to stand on his own. He didn't speak at all, and whined when he was left alone. He was starved and weak, and Ellis split his ration nearly in half sharing. When she thought no one was looking, Rochelle gave Ellis some of her own dinner, and he thanked her with a wan smile.

The boy fell asleep almost immediately after being fed, curled up in Rochelle's lap. He was so very small. She stroked his hair.

"How could God do somethin' like this?" Ellis whispered to himself. He saw Nick watching and looked at him helplessly.

"I don't know what to tell you, Ellis," Nick said with a shrug.

Ellis hunched in on himself and didn't talk after that. His eyes were haunted.

Nick propped himself against a wall and let sleep claim him. He dreamt of prone bodies, the dark roaring shadow of infection passing over the river they so desperately sought. The trickle of the water echoed of a million screams.

* * *

The darkness broke too early. Nick started awake and immediately felt the resulting headache.

"The fuck?" he grumbled into the thick blanket of night. He felt hands on him.

"I'm sorry," Ellis whispered. "It's just me."

"What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, Nick… I couldn't sleep, I…"

"What are you bothering _me_ for?" Nick squinted and made out the dark outline of Ellis's head. He felt the hot, stale blast of Ellis's breath on his lips.

"Don't cause no fuss, I didn't… Please, I… I jus' need to near somebody. Is that all right?"

"Fine, fine. I don't give a fuck." Nick pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the onset of an awful migraine.

Ellis slithered up next to him in the dark, pressed the length of his warm body alongside Nicks with an unsteady sigh. Nick didn't mention it, but he felt the press of Ellis's cheek on his arm, and it was damp with tears.

"Don't," Nick whispered. He hated it when people cried. "Stop that."

"Sorry, man, I'm sorry… Don't mean to bother you none, didn't mean to…"

Nick shifted, drawing Ellis into his arms, felt the melting rush as Ellis wept into his shoulder. It lasted all of two minutes, and the silence spoke volumes. He would never forget the pressure of Ellis's hand, the whisper of his breath against his neck as he cried openly in the dark as he never would in daylight. He wore away Nick's shell with patience and dedication, until they were both shamefully naked to their core.

They fell peacefully asleep, stripped of their skin.

* * *

They didn't talk to each other next the morning. Ellis's resolved seemed to have solidified.

Coach had the little boy in his lap and was trying to get him to speak. "What's your name, kiddo? What's your name, son?"

The boy looked up at him with bleak blue eyes. He didn't speak.

"Hey," Ellis said softly, leaning over, and he attracted the boy's attention. "How're you, lil' one?"

The boy blinked once, slowly.

"What's your name, huh?" Ellis turned on a warm, sweet smile.

Everyone was shocked when the smallest of voices issued from that tiny body, "Eugene." A pause. "I like cheese sandwiches."

The boy didn't talk again after that, no matter how they drilled and coaxed him.

When it was time to go, he ran to Ellis and hugged his leg tightly until he was finally picked up. Ellis grinned proudly despite himself, laying kisses in that yellow hair. Standing there, they looked like father and son.

It was with a sense of foreboding that Nick pushed open the saferoom door.

* * *

"Here," Ellis murmured, coming up to Nick with a bottle of pills held out before him. "I got this for you."

"The fuck are you giving this to _me_ for?"

Ellis was unfazed. "Cause I saw it, and I thought of you."

They looked at each other. Ellis held out the bottle of pills, his face open and vulnerable. Everything seemed to stutter and restart around them. Eugene was napping on Coach's shoulder.

"Here," Ellis said softly. "Please. I got it for you."

"Keep your goddamn pills for yourself," Nick snapped. "I don't need your help."

"Why are you always so damn mean for?" Ellis exploded, shoving the pills in his pocket. "Huh? What for?"

Nick couldn't come up with an answer. His mouth spoke. "Because I fucking hate you."

Ellis sloshed up ahead. His face was beet red.

* * *

Moving around held a new sort of connotation for everyone. It was one thing to travel through the dark, battling zombies and raising hell, when it was just their own lives to worry about – but Eugene added this unexpected factor. He was too small to wade through the knee-high bog, he was temperamental and was startled by the loud crack of gunfire, and he tired often, in that heavy sort of way children do after a traumatic ordeal, when their stomachs are empty, when their hope is gone. The adults took turns carrying him in their arms or on their backs, switching every hour. Ellis and Nick held him the most, being the strongest; for some reason, Nick found the image of Ellis with a baby on his hip and a roaring, blood-soaked chainsaw on the other absolutely hilarious.

It was still strange, having this new dynamic in their group, this new factor to consider when making decisions. The dangerous paths they might have otherwise taken to gain time were now a gamble they were hesitant to make, and the special Infected offered an entire new range of terror, now. What if, while their backs were turned, a Smoker nabbed Eugene right out of their arms and crushed him until his guts split out his mouth like meat from a sausage?

Eugene was asleep again presently as they came upon the plantation. His head was nestled in the place where Nick's neck met his shoulder, and he felt that uncomfortably strong feeling of affection at the gentle puff of his cool breath, the tiny fingers gripping his suit lapel.

"This has got to be a safe place," Coach said. "I think we made it, folks. The river's straight ahead."

"I have a bad feeling," Nick murmured, even though he hated to say it. Dread sat in his gut like a lead weight. The swamp around them was still and filled with the rippling noise of insects.

Ellis looked at him, and his expression softened, a tender smile coming over his face; for a minute, Nick wondered if Ellis was looking at _him_ like that – and then he realized he was probably looking at Eugene. The two of them were already strongly bonded.

"Can I have him?" Ellis asked presently, as if he had read Nick's mind. "He's sleepin' like an angel."

"In a minute," Nick replied, trying to be patient. "When we get inside. We should lay him down and let him get some rest."

"You'd make a better dad than you know, Nick, I think," Ellis teased. His eyes glowed.

Nick pulled his mouth into a snarl. "I hate kids," he said.

Ellis's face fell.

"Wait!" Rochelle gasped, and held out a hand to silence them. "Listen!"

They all went silent. Coach panned around with his shotgun. They heard it, quiet and distant but real – the churr of static, a voice on the radio.

"Oh, God," Rochelle said weakly. "Do you hear it?"

"It's a radio!" Ellis cried, as if they hadn't figured it out yet. He whooped in excitement. "We're saved! Jesus is lookin' down on us today! Yeah, buddy!"

"You don't know that," Nick said, not allowing himself to feel that painful bubble of hope just yet. Their dreams had been crushed before, on that helicopter four days ago, when the pilot had begun to vomit blood and the ground had swallowed them up with giant burning force. "You don't know what's on the other end of that radio. It could be nobody by now."

They moved forward. Every instinct in Nick's body screamed to run for that radio and scream into it until he got an answer, but still they walked slowly, checking each hallway and empty room and dispatching the Infected still there. After what felt like hours, they were in the back garden, and then finally they reached the radio. It spoke to them, words gargled in static. The voice of an angel rubbed out in places from the distance from heaven to earth. Eugene woke, hearing his own language; Nick felt the change in his breathing. He whimpered softly and burrowed his face against Nick's shoulder, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

"Sleep," Nick whispered to him.

Without speaking, Ellis took Eugene from him and kissed him back to sleep. He looked at Nick with understanding eyes, and Nick hated that look.

"I think that's French," Rochelle said, leaning closer to the radio. "Yeah! It's French!"

Everyone crowded close, but nobody reached for the radio. They looked amongst themselves, balanced on that precipice.

"Somebody do it," Nick growled. "God, please, somebody do it."

Coach grabbed the receiver. "Hello?"

The voice answered back. Rochelle wept outright with relief.

Nick knew it wasn't over, not yet.

* * *

He was haunted by that moment, those terrible seconds when that Tank was gaining on Ellis, the sound of his feet hitting the dock like the beats of a drum, loud, so loud, louder – Ellis screaming and cradling Eugene to his chest, his guns and dignity forgotten as his life became that instinctive urge to protect the little one. Nick would never forget that, the look on Ellis's face as the Tank swatted him, sent him crashing to the dock, the way he tucked his body over Eugene and bore the full brunt of the fall, sliding ten feet before he finally came to a stop at the edge, blood streaking down his back, wet.

Nick didn't realize it, but he was shouting. He opened fire – stupid, a stupid thing to do. The Tank rounded on the boat, and Ellis made a break for it, staggering and lunging for safety, Eugene dangling in his arms like a living doll.

He had to jump to make the boat as it pulled out of the dock. His legs gave out and he hit the deck and lay there still, gasping for air, clutching Eugene's hair as the little boy sobbed, passionately and without shame, into his chest. For a few minutes, no one touched them, let them lay there together and soak in their freedom.

Coach tossed a Molotov. It exploded on the Tank's back, and it bellowed in agony as it burned to death.

Ellis bled slowly. Tears slipped down his cheeks, silent, unobtrusive.

"Ellis," Rochelle said quietly. She sounded overcome. "Thank God you made it."

Coach's eyes were fixed on the receding dock, the zombies standing there; a few leapt into the water and drowned.

"How's Eugene?" Ellis asked, sitting up with obvious effort. He tried not to show his pain, but the gaping claw marks leading down his back told another story.

"Thanks to you, he looks great, you fucking idiot," Nick muttered, scooping Eugene up out of his arms and passing him off to Rochelle. "What were you thinking?"

"I had to protect him, didn't I?" Ellis snapped. "What would you have done? Set him out to get gobbled up by those crazy fuckers?"

"Better than losing both of you," Nick growled back. The cold remains of panic stirred in his gut – he hadn't realized that he was so afraid. "What would have been the point, if you had both died? Huh?"

"But we didn't both die," Ellis pointed out. "Christ, Nick, what're you so ornery for? We made it out alive, didn't we?"

They were all quiet, then. Rochelle bounced Eugene in her arms until he stopped his whimpering. No one looked anyone else in the eyes, and the boat drifted downriver.

"Poor, sweet thing," Rochelle whispered to Eugene. He stroked him and he coughed feebly into his hands.

Ellis stared Nick down now. His eyes were burning embers. They pierced his skin like meteors pelting through the atmosphere, searing hot, but the heat gobbled up its answers.

The captain came around to the deck, a smiling man in the middle of his life. "Well, welcome aboard, my lil' stowaways!" he chirped.

"Are you Cajun?" Ellis asked immediately, mindless of the sticky redness spreading under his shirt.

"Sho' am, mon cher." The captain smiled warmly. He had a thin little moustache arching over his mouth. "Name's Virgil."

"Did I ever tell you that Keith is Cajun, too? Yeah, shit, dunno what he was doin' up in Georgia, but it's the God's honest truth. One time –"

"Listen here, no more stories until you're back in one piece," Coach rumbled. "No ifs, ands, or buts."

Ellis smiled, and for a moment his real tiredness showed through. "You said 'butts,'" he said, which made Rochelle smile.

Nick stared at his feet, sucking in air, torn between what he knew and what he had yet to learn. The boat made up his mind for him, plunging on into the future, churning muddy waters.

* * *

"Stay the fuck still," Nick growled, pinning Ellis down. "You're gonna fuck it up."

Ellis whined and thunked his head against the table. "Hurts like a bitch," he said.

Nick sighed. "I know it. I know it, Overalls."

"How come… how come is it that you only call me Overalls when you're feelin' sorry?"

Nick glanced up and found those kind brown eyes fixed on him. He didn't stop stitching. "I don't do that."

"You do."

"Do you want me to get someone else to finish this? No one can do it as good as I can."

"Naw," Ellis mumbled. His face turned pink. "Naw… Sorry, Nick, sorry."

Nick worked a bit less gently than before, now, and when he was finished he left without a word. Rochelle watched him go with a wounded expression on her face, and she whispered something to him, something like, "Be nice to him, he tries so hard" – but Nick wasn't listening, couldn't face her when she had sad little Eugene snuggled in the crook of her arm like her own child. He couldn't face that.

* * *

That night, Eugene was a fitful sleeper. His leg was infected from the swamp water and was causing him to have a spiraling fever. Coach stayed up with him and tried to keep him cool, but they had no cold water – not even from the river, which was just below room temperature at the best of times but was better than nothing. He laid the boy down naked out on the deck and sat with him, though Eugene didn't like him and refused to sleep with him near, until Nick finally took his shift despite his best judgment.

Out of everyone, Eugene adored Ellis – but Ellis was out cold from the pills they had given him for his wounds, and if they put Eugene with him, the poor little boy would boil with his fever, because he would surely snuggle in close and refuse to budge. After Ellis, he seemed to have an unusual fondness for Nick, though if this was simply because Nick carried him the most, no one was sure. He didn't seem to mind Rochelle, but he was shy around Coach, until Coach pulled a silly face at him and made him smile. The poor kid rarely smiled any other time. A grin was as rare as the sound of his voice.

When Nick sat down beside him, Eugene tried to hug him. Nick set him back down gently.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, not expecting a response.

Eugene blinked up at him tiredly. His little apple cheeks were flushed. He didn't talk.

The wind blew sweetly over them. Eugene turned his face into it and smiled the faintest of smiles.

Nick hated to admit it, but watching this filled him with the warm, weighted feeling of pride – and the disconnected sort of love men will feel for children, even if they aren't his own, the need to nurture and preserve. Nick had never thought of himself as the kind of person who would become a parent, really. He didn't like kids overall, and didn't want the hassle and expense. Now, though, he felt that if he ever did get stuck with this kid for life, he wouldn't mind it – not at all.

When Eugene began to yawn and go into the pattern of pre-sleep, Nick gathered him up into his arms and leaned back against the cabin wall. He rocked him gently into that first step of slumber, and from there Eugene quickly tumbled into a firm black sleep. He was like a soft, breathing stone.

Soothed by the sound of that steady breathing, the whisper of the river against the sides of the boat, and Coach's soft, even snores from within the cabin, Nick felt himself succumb to the currents of sleep as well.

The night watched over them.

* * *

"We're out of gas," Rochelle said the next morning over breakfast.

Nick couldn't remember the last time oatmeal had tasted so good – but it was almost all that Virgil had, boxes upon boxes and cans upon cans of non-perishables, soups and beans and oatmeal. A friendly man, yes, but also well-stocked for a full-on apocalypse. He'd made this trip before.

"What are we goin' to do with no gas?" Ellis asked, looking troubled and sleep-tousled. "We ain't half way to New Orleans. Keith one time swam all the way down the Mississippi, but as for me I ain't too willin' to try it."

Rochelle smiled at him patiently. "Virgil says he has a usual pit stop at this riverside restaurant… I guess it has a gas station in it, and it's loaded up."

"So what will we do while he gets it?" Nick asked around a mouthful of lukewarm food.

Rochelle smiled at him. "Knowing Virgil, he's not going to get out. I mean, he's a sweet guy, but…" She let the statement hang. Everyone knew that Virgil was just a little bit paranoid. He'd only come out to speak with them directly twice, the first time being when they had arrived.

"He's gonna send us out, do you think?" Ellis frowned.

"That's pretty much what she just said," Nick said snarkily.

Ellis scowled at him outright. He hefted Eugene into his lap and started sharing his oatmeal with him.

"Virgil will probably leave the boat off the dock so that no zombies get on board," Rochelle said. "While we fetch the fuel. Anyway, that's sort of what I got out of it. He gave me flares." She grinned and pointed to the gun bag in the corner.

Nick glanced at it. "Huh," he said. "Well, I do love fire."

They finished breakfast in relative silence. Ellis made all sorts of odd noises for Eugene's amusement, and Eugene smiled for him like he never smiled for anyone else – but he never laughed. Not once.

* * *

Just as the boat began to pull into the dock, an explosive yowl was heard from up above; Ellis came down looking windswept and irritable, bouncing a hysterical Eugene on his hip.

"Virgil said he was gonna watch after the lil' one, all right…" he said, launching into that speedy, breathy sort of speech he got when he was angry. "I go to set Eugene down, and he has a right goddamn fit! Didn't want to be left alone. Damn near bit off poor Virgil's thumb. I don't know what the fuck we're gonna do, what with him bein' sick…"

"I guess we'll have to bring him with us," Nick said.

Ellis gaped at him. "Out there? What, with the zombies and everythin'?"

"He's been through it once already. We know he's capable of it."

Ellis looked down into Eugene's flushed, sniffling face. An expression passed over his face that Nick had never seen before or since. "All right," he said softly. "We'll have to look after him."

"We'll go slow," Rochelle said in an attempt to mollify him.

Ellis shook his head and tugged his baseball cap more firmly over his head. Eugene fixed Nick with another one of his milky stares, and by the time the boat was stopped, Nick felt ill with nerves.

* * *

They took turns carrying Eugene again as they trekked through the abandoned town. It was a pretty big place, probably because the sugar mill provided a lot of employment. The result was that there were a truckload of fucking zombies – everywhere.

Eugene wasn't faring well with his fever. He kept vomiting and coughing in turns. Ellis fretted nonstop about him – but his aim was impeccable, probably because he had something more to be shooting for.

Nick never could have understood it, that bond Ellis had forged so early on and so powerfully. But it was there, and apparent, and real.

"Looks like a storm's headin' in," Coach commented towards the end of the day, as they prepared to hole up in the second story of an abandoned home. "What do you think, folks?"

"Can't stop now," Nick murmured, taking Eugene from Ellis, who smiled at him in thanks. "We've got to get the gas."

"How am I healin' up, Nick?" Ellis asked presently, shucking his shirt and cap in preparation for sleep. He turned and Nick studied his handiwork.

"Healing up pretty nicely, actually," Nick said, and couldn't resist feeling a bit smug. Ellis saw his grin and echoed it.

"Thanks, man. I owe you one."

"Don't worry about it."

Their eyes met and locked with a force that was almost alien to Nick. He knew it. "Quit," he said softly, looking away. "Don't."

"Sorry," Ellis murmured, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Forgot you was so…"

"Overalls, just…"

They both stopped talking, staring at opposite planes, working their jaws. The tension was thick and magnetic.

Rochelle slumped against the wall with an exaggerated sigh, breaking up the mood. "I'm beat. Who's taking the bed?"

No one complained when Eugene ended up in the bed by himself. It seemed right.

* * *

Nick surfaced from the deep waters of sleep to the feeling of a body curling up against his.

"Ellis?" he whispered. "Is that you?"

Quietly, in a choked sort of voice, "Yeah, it's me…"

"What are you doing, Overalls? We've done this already." He read the message all wrong, too late.

"Can't help it… Can't help it…"

Nick felt rather than saw the dark shape shifting over him, the sudden heat surrounding him, the warning blast of breath over his mouth before Ellis was kissing him in the dark. He struggled to get up, felt certain that he would run, or hit the scrawny fucking redneck, or _something_ – but instead his hands were reaching out, pawing blindly, grabbing hold of Ellis's shirt and spinning him around, slamming him hard into the floor.

"Ouch, dammit," Ellis gasped. "_Gentle_."

"The fuck are you doing?" Nick snarled. He was surprised to feel his eyes stinging with tears. "You can't do this."

Ellis leaned up and kissed him again, softly, slowly. Nick didn't pull away; a shudder racked up from the base of his spine all the way into his shoulders, and he moaned lowly.

"Stop," he whispered. "Can't you see?"

"Shush up," Ellis answered, kissing him again and again and again, pulling every protest out of Nick through his mouth from the depths of his being. "You'll wake everyone up."

"Overalls…"

"Shush up," Ellis growled. "Shut your mouth."

Nick tasted it then – the salt of tears. He wasn't sure whose they were, but the muffled sob that came from Ellis now told the story.

Slowly, with great care, Nick found the start of Ellis's overalls and began to tug them down.

There, in that dark corner of the night, Ellis stole everything from him, wrenched his heart out of him on a whispered curse like a prayer.

* * *

In the morning, Ellis leaned over Nick and kissed him awake. Nick cocked back and slugged him across the mouth, splitting his lip and making it bleed.

The others only saw the brawl start out, saw Ellis sit down hard on the floor, eyes blank with shock and pain and confusion. Nick socked him again for good measure, and Ellis didn't fight back.

"Hey! What the fuck, man?" Coach shouted. "Break it up! We can't have this shit, not right now."

"Get your hands off me," Nick spat down at Ellis.

The worst part was the way Ellis picked himself back up, silent, eyes averted, as if Nick had stripped him of everything.

_Good_, he thought poisonously. Now they were on a level playing field.

* * *

The rain stuttered up briefly and died off.

"Well, there goes you storm, Coach," Nick said snidely.

Coach, carrying Eugene on his back, shook his head. "That wasn't nothing. You watch, son, and you'll see."

They kept walking. Ellis fell back to walk beside Nick, who pointedly ignored him, focusing on the gas station up ahead. He did the math in his head – if they got the gas now, they would be back to the boat just after nightfall. That was, assuming something didn't slow them down, and that was if Virgil even noticed their signal.

"Nick," Ellis said. His eyes were big and full of something tender and terrible.

"Don't talk to me."

Rochelle glanced back at them. He saw the truth in her eyes, and for a paranoid moment he was sure she knew what had happened.

"I jus' wanted to apologize, is all… No need to get all toothy." Ellis stared straight ahead. He rested his baseball bat on his shoulder.

"Apologize for what?"

"For… everythin', man. Shit, just everythin'." Ellis swallowed thickly. "I don't know why I did it, I mean… Shit, I wasn't thinkin' bout nothin' except that I… Just somethin' about you, Nick, I don't…"

"I don't want to hear about it," Nick said. "You want to know why _I _did it? I was lonely, and you were willing."

The words were so ugly, so very ugly. Nick watched as they pelted Ellis like rocks, saw his eyes drop towards the center of the earth, saw him start to hitch in that uneven breath that signaled that he was trying not to show his weakness.

"That ain't fair of you, Nick, it ain't…"

"Do you want me to lie? What do you want?"

"Naw, I don't want that!" Ellis cried. "God dammit, never mind!" He swung the bat at Nick, not too firmly, hitting him in the gut and knocking the wind out of him. He took off running until he reached Coach, where he slowed to a walk again.

"Fuck," Nick said, wheezing; he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

Rochelle looked at him and started to laugh.

* * *

"Witches," Ellis whispered. His eyes were huge. "Nick, have you ever seen so many Witches?"

Nick gave up on his vendetta to ignore Ellis as long as possible. "No… God damn. We should have gone around."

Rochelle held Eugene's face against her breasts nervously. They all could connect with her on that level, the need to protect that little boy. He sniffled and whined in sympathy with the chorus of howls all around them, communing with the fellow broken spirits, no matter how Rochelle shushed him and hummed and kissed him. His nose ran in yellow streams.

"Give him to me," Ellis said quietly. "Please, I can shush him up… Please."

Rochelle handed him over. Ellis kissed him and snuggled him and wept with him until they were both quiet. Everyone stood around, silent, tense, listening to the weeping crest and wane in turns.

"Time to shush now," Ellis whispered. He looked down at Eugene's serious blue eyes and said to him, "Keep quiet now. It's a game. Quiet game. Kay?"

Eugene nodded and buried his face in Ellis's shoulder, presumably to sleep.

"You make a natural mother," Nick quipped.

Ellis smiled at him. Nick couldn't help feeling that somewhere along the way, he had lost.

* * *

Coming back was more difficult than going in. The rain picked up into something a little stronger than an obnoxious downpour, starting to flood the streets, and the added weight of the gas cans didn't help matters. Despite their efforts, Coach had come up on a Witch unexpectedly and had a bad cut across his leg, and was limping worse than ever, mostly supported by Rochelle.

Nick kept his mind focused on the outcome of this venture. They would get back to the boat, and sail to New Orleans, and be picked up in a chopper and sent to some safe little place probably where there were no people, and he would live happily ever after as the military bombed the shit out of the Infected and fixed the world.

He knew this wasn't true. The pessimist in him insisted that this whole thing would probably end in Mutually Assured Destruction, which didn't help his anxiety problems at all. And the longer he walked, the more hopeless it felt – except for one thing, the weight of that little boy on his hip, little Eugene, who had come so far when all betting odds said he should have been struck down weeks ago. And Nick knew all about odds, and chances, and miracles. He made work in it.

A lightning strike summoned a rush of zombies. Coach leaned against a fencepost so that he and Rochelle could use both arms to fire. Nick struggled with firing a shotgun with a toddler in his arms, but he had no other option. He screamed and tasted metal – and then it was over, and they were surrounded only by the muted patter of rain again.

Eugene was awake, but serene. He coughed wetly every once and a while.

"Hey, Nick," Ellis said presently, speaking in a soft kind of voice that commanded attention. He sounded afraid as he came up alongside him. "Don't think low of me or nothin', but…"

Hefting Eugene on one shoulder and struggling to reload his gun, Nick muttered, "Now's not a good time, man."

A gunshot rang into the dark. Coach whooped in victory. The rain swept through just a little harder, just a little faster; Nick stripped off his jacket and covered Eugene's head with it.

"Nick," Ellis said, louder now, and grasped his sleeve. "Listen here, just for a sec."

"What?" Nick snapped, seeing the raw, reddened look in Ellis's eyes and not heeding it. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I think I love you."

The words were like a punch to the groin.

Ellis's voice broke. His face was open, exposing his naked soul beneath, something Nick hadn't yet seen in daylight but had felt twice in the darkness. He gripped his rifle as if it was the last thread holding him to the earth, the final stitch, and that if he let go he would fly up into the atmosphere and never come down.

"Oh," Nick said softly. His throat was tight. Part of him wanted to rage and hate and crush. "Dammit… Dammit. Oh Ellis, Overalls… Listen…"

But then the rain hit with the full front of its body, blackening the sky. And from the darkness came the terror, came death, in a snarling, screaming wave.

The rain was full of blood.

* * *

Ellis's turn to carry Eugene had come half an hour ago, but still Nick hauled him, his face stony, his back straight. Eugene, slumped on his back, was awake again after a fitful nap. His fever had gone down, but he cough was getting worse. Unless the infection from his leg had spread into his lungs, he had probably gotten some weird swamp virus – but the lack of bleeding eyes and gums showed he wasn't Infected, at least not yet. Ellis had thanked God for this before sleep more times than Nick could count.

"I'll take him from you," Ellis said for the umpteenth time. He seemed antsy. "It ain't no bother. I just want to help."

"I got him," Nick answered stiffly. His eyes were fixed on the path ahead.

"Can't believe this," Coach was muttering. "Lost in the middle of goddamn Louisiana in a thunder storm with a pack of kids."

"We're almost to the boat, if Virgil's still here," Rochelle said in a quiet, quiet voice.

After that, everyone shut up. Time slipped by on swift, silent feet. Ellis watched Eugene. His face was still flush, his eyes still slightly glassy. Sometimes he coughed into his pudgy hand.

Nick's back was beginning to ache with the weight, but he refused to complain, just kept moving his feet, and the constant motion did him good, soothed his frantic brain. He had a talent for steeling himself on the outside – it was how you played poker, how you survived jail, how you made it through the world. It was something Ellis had never learned. He proved it over and over.

"Let me take him," Ellis was saying now – from the way his voice caught, he hadn't meant to say it, but the words came compulsively, rough with feeling. His hands clenched at his sides, itching to gather up his adopted son. "Come on. Let me take him."

"No." Then, "Ellis… fuck off."

Eugene began to whimper, and then to cry outright.

"Oh, God," Nick moaned, and swung Eugene around to his front, cradling him to his heart, shushing him, stroking him. "There there, kid... Don't cry. Eugene, hush up, please don't cry…"

But it did no good. Eugene wanted the world to know what he was feeling.

"Give him here," Ellis whispered.

Finally, Nick handed him over. "Fine. Fine." He felt naked and useless and vulnerable.

Ellis buried his face in that soft yellow hair, murmuring assurances as the monsters came from all around, attracted by the sound of Eugene's crying. Gunfire sounded around them. He lied to that little boy as bodies fell, told him everything would be all right.

When the battle was over, Eugene had cried himself to sleep on Ellis's shoulder.

"Sorry," Ellis said to no one in particular, except maybe God. "Sorry, so sorry."

Nick touched his arm, just once; it was all he allowed himself to do. Ellis started and looked at him with bleak eyes. Fear and love lay behind them like warring shadows.

Eugene slept peacefully, sucking on his thumb.

* * *

"You don't even know me," Nick said as they sat out on the deck, watching the lake push by them, watching the world recede around them. "We've talked for all of two weeks."

"Feels longer than that, don't it?" Ellis replied, smiling down at the sleeping form of Eugene. He seemed not to notice the way the little boy shuddered in his sleep, the way his breath would stop alarmingly for a moment and start again.

Nick didn't answer. He stared at the sunrise. The sky was a pale, sleepy purple.

"Nick?"

"What?"

"I meant what I said."

"I know you did. You're so goddamn earnest."

"What?"

"Never mind." Nick stared at his hands, the half-dozen glinting rings, and he had never hated himself more – not even when he was seventeen and he took away Cookie's virginity and she cried and cried and he had hit her and no, he never wanted to remember that, couldn't help but to remember that, remember that cold creeping feeling of loathing and condemnation and knowing that he would never ever be the same – how afraid he had been, how he had screamed and ran and ran until he ran out of wind and he lay on the sidewalk for an hour crying, until the cops picked him up and took him home, and it was the start of many rides in cop cars, so many tearful calls to Cookie, thick with apologies and pledges of love, until the day she walked out on him forever and he felt bitterly full of judgment, that he had received his payment from God.

It was all behind him. All of it. It ran out from under him like water. The water came in hot, slick gushes, and he didn't realize he was crying until Ellis touched him, pulled him from the stinking depths of his soul, and kissed him there on the deck of Virgil's boat. Ellis ran a hand through his hair and stared into his eyes and something there shouted the truth until Nick could hear nothing else.

"So sorry, Overalls," he whispered.

"Don't apologize for nothin'," Ellis replied, smiling, and the tears came for him, too.

They both turned away to compose themselves, swallowing the few pieces of their manly pride. Ellis rummaged around in his pockets and produced a small bottle, putting it in Nick's hand, and Nick took it even though he didn't want it, knowing what it meant.

It was a bottle of pills. Smiling, he pocketed them.

"What do you say?" Ellis chided playfully, but in a breathless sort of way, because he wasn't sure what the reaction would be.

"Thank you, Ellis."

He thanked him for so many things all at once. The list could touch heaven.

Ellis laughed, even as he choked on the air, even as the sun swung towards the pinnacle of the sky, even as Nick swallowed up his giggles with his own warm, desperate mouth, tried to tell him everything without words.

It wouldn't be this way forever, and they both knew it.

"Persistent little shit," Nick muttered against his lips, and Ellis chuckled.

"You ain't never met Keith. He's a million and one times worse."

Sandwiched between them, Eugene began to cough and cough, until blood stained his chin.

* * *

So close to New Orleans, Nick felt the start of a new beginning.

"We gotta get him to a hospital," Ellis was saying, standing with Eugene in his arms as they pulled into the harbor. "He's burnin' up."

"He'll be all right," Nick promised him, though he had no such power. "I'll damn well make sure of it."

"Promise me."

"Do what?"

"Promise me. _Promise me_!"

"I promise. Fuck, Overalls, I promise."

They looked at each other. Ellis trembled head to foot, holding that little blond head to his heart.

"We'll make it out okay," Nick said, softer now, and this seemed to be enough to strengthen Ellis up. He smiled that tired, determined smile.

Virgil's voice came over the loudspeakers, solemn but kind. "This is as far as Virgil goes, folks."

Rochelle was the first to step off the deck, wielding her shotgun, breathing in spiked breaths. She looked close to breaking.

"I'm proud of you kids," Coach said. He stumbled, and Nick caught him. "We've got to make it that one last mile."

"One last mile," Ellis echoed, and smiled. "We can do it. Ain't no problem. We made it this far."

It was with this hope that they started forward, braced themselves for that final challenge, wanting that reward of neutrality, of rest, and nothing more – not for themselves, but for Eugene. They found that fighting spirit within themselves for the pale-eyed, silent little boy from the Louisiana swamplands, even as his eyes drifted shut and he fell into a hard, sweet slumber on Ellis's shoulder.

They would carry him to the ends of the earth, until their backs were broken. They would carry him.

- **the end**


End file.
